Cardiff, Wales

 That's right--Tank Crossing! As we drove toward the Motorway (what we call an Interstate in the U.S.) we passed a few of these crossings in an area of the map that looked to be pretty barren; suddenly we knew why--military land!

We experienced our first rain later in the day as we drove from Stonehenge toward Cardiff, Wales. We were glad to have a day of driving under our belt before having to drive in the rain. We crossed over the Mouth of the Severn River on the long suspension bridge. As we looked to our left we could see in the dark, rainy distance where the mouth opened into the Celtic Sea.

As soon as we crossed over into Wales, we found that all the signage in the country is bilingual--English and Welsh. Another thing about the signage in the UK that we enjoyed was that on multi-lane highways that split off, they paint the road numbers for exits on the road itself. They also often have reflectors in addition to painted lines, which comes in very handy while driving at night--especially in the rain!

Finding our way to our hotel in downtown Cardiff in the dark and heavy rain was not an easy task. We eventually found our way there and after Erika got us checked in we learned that the "parking adjacent to the hotel" was actually a couple blocks away so we unloaded at the door and then drove to park the car. Of course, this was the night that the meter was going to eat our money so we ended up standing outside in the rain calling the customer service phoneline using our overseas rate on the cell phone we took along!

Erika at the Big Sleep Hotel

We made our way back to our hotel room with very minimal surroundings. We had booked a room at the Big Sleep Hotel specifically because we heard it referred to as a "Formica Wonderland!" There was Formica everywhere--desk, nightstand, windowsill, bed frame, door frames, bathroom vanity, shower surround, ... To take it a step further, the curtains were made from fleece blankets, and all the other furnishings throughout the whole hotel gave you the feeling that Ikea threw up in the place!

Notice the blue Formica and fleece blanket

Take a look at the photos to see our blue room! The breakfast room was completely decorated in pink Formica!

After a long day on the road and stressful evening, we still considered Cardiff to have a good "vibe" and before we crashed for the day we called the front desk and requested to stay an additional night so we'd have a full day to explore this city.

-J

Stonehenge

Panoramic view of the Stonehenge area

After a second try at finding the right road out of Salisbury, we were on our way toward Stonehenge. Neither of us had strong desires to visit Stonehenge, but when you're in England (and Erika had never seen it when she'd been in the UK before), you've got to at least see it!

The amazing stonework which helped keep the stones together

When we decided that we'd actually pay admission to get closer than the road. Buy purchasing an English Heritage Pass we received discounts at Stonehenge as well as several other places we were planning to go, so we knew we'd get our purchase price back in savings. The audio guides for Stonehenge were really well done, even though there's a lot of unknowns about the stone circle.

Burial mound at Stonehenge

We had both heard that you can't get very close, but at the closest point I don't think we were more than 50 feet from the stones. It's not like being able to climb on them, but it's better than we had heard.

Many people are really amazed by the idea of people thousands of years ago cutting these stones and hauling them over 200 miles from Wales, but we found ourselves more perplexed by the questions of: Who were these people who built Stonehenge? Why did they build it?And most of all, where did they go?

-J